A Prelude for a Valkryie
by epicfacethe3rd
Summary: Sometime ago, long before 2062, about ten years after an incident that nobody really heard about on Beilan Island, three people are fighting to live. A 16 year old boy barely hanging on for life, a 13 year old girl with cat ears, and an 18 year old whose limp is the least of his problems must escape to survive.
1. Chapter 1: Above

"Where were you from, Dad?"  
"That's... a long story Rose."  
"We have plenty of time."  
"I probably have a diary or something you can look at. Let me see if I can find it.  
I don't have any good memories of that place."

* * *

I landed. Hard. My leg now broken from the fall, I couldn't run anymore. The three gunshot wounds in my abdomen made me scream for air.  
I was losing breath by the second. In two minutes, I'm not going to be able to breathe. Crawling, I try and escape the monster chasing me, but it's no use.  
It's cold hand grabs my ankle and pulls. The pain is excruciating as it flips me over by my broken leg. The glare from the flames it spits scald my arm. I looked into its eyes, and let go of the dead man's switch.

Jolting me awake, the lock screen of my monitor glared blue at me, reminding me not only that I was sitting in the same hell I had been in since eight,  
but also that I had made a critical mistake: falling asleep. My breaths were quick and deep, the nightmare that consumed me still fresh in my mind.  
Why do they have to be so frequent? Continuing my work through the delirium, my mind struggled to think of something other than the terrible illusion I had just seen.  
I'd never really known anything outside the complex. After all, that would totally defeat the point of making an eight-year-old from scratch.  
It's a fast way to lose your work, and after another almost eight years of slave labor, these people did not want to lose their work. AI work had been my specialty over the last two years.

Who would blame them? When I turned fourteen, I had created an AI framework to surpass anything ever seen before.  
It was worth billions. No, trillions. Nobody could network AI together in a manner to have them control each other.  
I did it anyway. Nobody could force an AI unit to do anything. I figured out how. Nobody could trick them into wanting to kill.

I figured out how.

Not that I wanted to of course, but there's not much you can do to say "no" to someone when they can amp up your drugs to give you hallucinations.  
Typically I was given a mixture of Methamphetamine and Amphetamine used to stay awake at all times of day.  
If I had disobeyed, a little bit of Lisdexamfetamine got slipped in. Want to know a commonly known side effect of Lisdexamfetamine?  
Hallucinations. Bad ones. It's not like I could just not take this devil's cocktail of stimulants either, I needed them to function with the lack of sleep.  
They gave us about twenty hours of sleep a week. Every five days, we were all forced to stay awake for 48 hours straight and do simulations.  
We were, repairable and controllable. In their minds, we were no more human than what we were building.

We built killing machines.

I didn't bother to remember my real name anymore. After all, if you were half as screwed up as I was, you'd be alright with being called Lazarus too.  
It fit me pretty well. Six heart attacks, two seizures, and almost daily vivid hallucinations from the drugs made the others think I was constantly on the verge between life and death.  
Minerva would frequently have to hug me back into reality. I hated it. No thirteen-year-old girl should have to do what she did, although I appreciated that she wasn't as rough as Vulcan.  
Vulcan would frequently try to beat the hallucinations out of me,  
although as of late, he had taken to just locking me in a cold shower and waiting for me to stop screaming about how the ceiling tiles wanted to eat me.  
He'd been here longer than the rest of us, about nineteen years old, and couldn't be bothered to remember how long he had been inside.

He was quiet. Minerva liked him though. She thought of him as an older brother, always looking up to him.

I have to be honest, Minerva always seemed to be smarter than the rest of us.  
Yes, we were all essentially raised to be engineers by our captors, but she was different. She was a natural.  
The mathematics for calculating the stresses put on a leg were simple to her, to where she could do all of this advanced calculus in her head.  
The word was that she was a creation of the laboratory, a genetically modified to naturally be better suited to learn math and engineering, based off of lessons learned from my generation of designer babies.  
Naturally, she had been assigned as our mechanical engineer, creating the frames and bodies of our monsters.  
Some of the others made fun of her white cat ears, but they always struck me as cute. They might have been a holdover from another genetic framework used to create her.  
Her strawberry blond hair hid her eyes, grey and weary from the constant lack of sleep. Sometimes she smiled, a beautiful ray of sunshine, a gesture rarely seen in our prison.  
Sometimes I would go weeks without seeing something as simple as a smile to offset all of the nightmares I saw. Even then, for her, the angel in darkness, a smile was rare.  
Despite our age, despite our drugged mindlessness, despite how little we remembered of the outside world, we all understood this was hell.

The time every one of us looked forward to was our holiday leave.  
It was a bit of a misnomer - we weren't allowed a party, and we never got to leave - we simply were allowed to not work and could thus stay off our wakefulness drugs for ten days.  
Most used it to catch up on much needed sleep, some used it to get to know each other better, if only for little more than a week.  
Something as simple as a few days to try to unwind after ninety days of brutal work was well appreciated by many.

In a just under an hour, this holiday would finally start. I had timed my last dose of stimulants to wear off right as the holiday started. Or so I had thought.

In reality, I had taken my pills an hour before I should have. Over the course of the previous hour, the drugs had been slowly wearing off.  
By now, the effects were almost gone, and I could feel the last ninety days and nights catching up to me.  
If I fell asleep now, I risked having an IV put into me until the holiday and losing a few hours of precious sleep.  
At some point, I slowly realized someone was knocking on my door, and that I had yet again fallen asleep on my desk.

Shit.

I quickly bolt up to the door and open it, hoping I don't get an IV.  
"I couldn't hear you, music was loud. Sorry."  
"It's fine. I just need to tell you something."  
That doesn't sound like administration.  
I rub my eyes to make sense of what I'm hearing.  
"You alright Lazarus? Looks like you were a bit late on scheduling when to take your stimulants.."  
Vulcan is standing in my doorway, looking only slightly less tired than me.  
I groan and arch my back in an attempt to relax my exhausted muscles.  
"Spot on, look like the same thing happened to you." I sigh a pained relief. Vulcan not working means the holiday has likely started by now.  
I must have missed looking at the time as I got up. Sure enough, my watch reads just a bit past midnight.  
"What did you need to tell me?" I'm already thinking about how warm my bed is going to be when I fall into it tonight.  
"The watchword is 'Flood'. Meet at the normal place."  
"I'm sorry?"  
"See you tomorrow."

Vulcan was already headed down the hall. No point in asking him further. I knew where the normal place was.  
Minerva's lab had a chamber devoid of all RF frequency. Nothing could record anyone there.  
The three of us had met there several times already, mainly to complain about how our last 90 day period had been, or to hold me down to try and suppress my hallucinations.  
I guess I'd find out what all the secrecy was for tomorrow.

I made my way down to Minerva's lab the next morning. she was doing the same job I had been doing a few years back - designing the chassis of the robots.  
She had taken to it quickly, like I had from Vulcan. At the moment, she was experimenting with a unit that looked far more human. It had pale skin and even seemed to wear clothes.  
Knowing Minerva's ingenuity, it was likely even the clothing was integrated into the sensor suite. Something caught my eye. This was not Minerva's work. The head wasn't on it, but it was still easy to recognize it wasn't from here. Was this the rumored Sangvis unit I had been hearing about for so long? Maybe, but I don't think it would have already gotten here. Supposedly Sangvis hadn't even gotten it into full production. Someone would have to have stolen it from them for it to be JAGER. I gently closed the door.

"Flood."  
Minerva jumped a bit at the sound of the watchword.  
"Vulcan's in the testing room. I'll be there in just a second."

What the hell was this all about? Why was everyone being so secretive about this? why was Minerva so nervous?

Minerva closed the door behind her as she entered the room with the others. Vulcan was leaning against the wall with his cane. Ever since he had broken his leg he had never really gotten back to who he was before. The Administration didn't care if he could walk, only if he could work. It was only at the insistence of the medical team that his leg was cared for at all.

"We're getting out of this shithole."  
"Are you out of your mind Vulcan?" I was shocked. What Vulcan had just said could get him shot. No one ever escaped the complex.  
"That last kid that tried to get out _cried_ for his bullet. He _begged_ for it."  
Vulcan looked away from my gaze. He knew he was proposing something downright suicidal.  
"That, that thing." I inhaled deeply. The memories of the robot I helped design torturing and killing my friend were too much for me.  
It's hydraulic claws tearing apart his body. The snaps and cracks his bones made as they broke.  
His screams. Oh god, his screams.  
His death was a mercy, compared to what my abomination had done to him.  
"Oh god." I crumpled into a ball on the ground.  
"Lazarus?" Minerva was nudging my shoulder "Lazarus it's gonna be alright."  
"No one's going to die."  
Me and Minerva looked up at Vulcan.  
"I mean it. We're all getting out of here alive. No exceptions."  
Minerva helped me to my feet, shakily.  
"There's a power substation. If we destroy it, the entire facility security shuts down. We get out. Pretty simple."  
"I see a problem."  
"Yes, Lazarus?"  
"How the hell do we get someone those four miles to the substation undetected? The whole area around here is monitored by sensors."  
"You know the substation I'm talking about?"  
"You're not the only person with access to the maps of this place."  
"There's an underground tunnel complex that goes through all the buildings. According to my research, the substation was never officially connected, but it's close enough.  
The tunnels let you out in what is likely a sensor dead zone. It's not even fifty yards to it from there."  
"And how would we get out after that?"  
"Simple. The tunnel complex was built on top of an old mine. I was able to find where to old tunnels should be, and it looks like one of the water maintenance line leads out.  
A small drone confirmed there was only one gate in the way, and it should open when the power gets cut."  
"So who's going to the substation?" I asked  
"You."  
"Come again?"  
"I was originally planning on doing it myself, but my current condition limits me."  
Vulcan tapped his cane. It struck me that a kid who was only 18 needed a cane to walk as awful for a moment, but the feeling subsided.  
There were far worse things here. I rubbed my temples.  
"I don't know how I feel about this."  
"I really don't like it either."  
"Minerva…"  
"What, Vulcan? You don't want me to admit that I think this is a bad idea?"  
"I.."  
"Someone is going to get seriously hurt. It's all based on guesswork and what we think will happen. There are no certainties in your plan, no accommodations in case things don't go as planned.  
If one domino falls the wrong way, they'll make an example of us just like they did to Adam. I would rather not get tortured to death."  
"Would you rather die here?"  
Minerva fell silent. She may be young, but she still understood that every year you grew older really was another year closer to death.  
Around when you turned 20, the administration would take you away, and you were never seen again.  
"Sleep on it. If it helps, I've figured out our rough latitude down to about a mile. Minus 48 degrees and 26 minutes."  
Vulcan stood up fully and opened the chamber door, leaving only the slow rhythmic clicking of his walking cane as he went.  
"Time to go to breakfast." said Minerva, as she left.

What the hell am I supposed to do? I would be surprised to make it to twenty with my current health, so getting taken by The Administration didn't concern me.  
Minerva and Vulcan...  
could I leave them to that fate? To just die in this miserable place? I walked out the door and went to my room to grab my music player.

What the hell am I supposed to do?


	2. Chapter 2: A Man, Broken

"Fuck it, I'm in." Vulcan's face brightened at the sound of me joining the plot.  
"Nice of you to join me, Lazarus. I didn't think you would show up today."  
"What can I say, I'm a sucker for stupid ideas."  
"Glad to hear it. Let's talk about training."  
Minerva was elsewhere, likely trying to catch up on sleep.  
"You'll likely need to learn some basic stealth skills, and get up to date on some equipment Minerva's been making. Additionally, you can't carry an electronic map of the tunnel system, so you're gonna have to memorize it. The critical thing is you need to keep writing backdoors into your code, and we all need to know everyone's ways in."  
"Backdoors?" he couldn't be serious. Sharing backdoors? How much of a death wish did Vulcan have? If anyone found out...  
"Three working to break the security system is better than one."  
"You are out of your fucking mind."  
"How else are we going to get out of here?"

I paused. He was right. There's no clean way to get the security taken down. Even if we managed to get into the tunnels, we still needed to keep them from seeing us. If they let out the machines on us, we were dead. We _had_ to share backdoors. I sighed.  
"Alright. Fine."  
"Good to see we can find some common ground."  
I glared at Vulcan. His eyes quickly darted to the corner.  
"Alright, well, ah, I should also teach you some other things just in case. Land navigation, Wilderness survival, that sort of thing. None of us really know what's out there."

He glanced over at me. He didn't like this plan either. What I was going to do bordered on suicide. Odds are, if we got out, we would be too far to meet up - I would have to get out alone. I didn't know what he thought of me, but he clearly needed me to trust him. I didn't know how to feel about that. He clearly wanted to do this job himself, but why not wait and see if his leg got better? It made no sense. I don't want to do this, I don't trust him, none of this seems like a good idea, and I'm gonna fucking die.  
"When do I start?"  
"Now. Remember to talk about 'Soldier Psychology', that's what we're calling the plan." Vulcan lead me out of the chamber, and opened the door. "Let's start with land navigation. That's a critical one to understand when it comes to soldier psychology. You need to understand it when it comes to working on AI units."  
"Of course." I stared bleakly down the hallway. This is not gonna go well at all for me.  
"We'll want to stop by the storeroom though, a few bits of gear you're going to want."  
"Come again?" Vulcan never mentioned equipment.  
"Just follow me."

We walked down to the Quartermaster's office. Vulcan knocked on the glass to wake the officer dozing there. He groggily glanced at me and Vulcan, and pressed the intercom key.  
"What do you want?" he demanded.  
"We just need some components for when work starts next week. Here's the withdrawal paperwork." Vulcan waved a piece of paper with seemingly authoritative writing on it.

The man groaned. "Fine, come in." he flipped off the switch that kept the door into the room locked, and put his head back down to go to sleep. Unbeknownst to the Quartermaster, the paper was simply a proofing document that Vulcan had replaced every word on with the word 'Chicken,' which he kept exclusively for the purpose of duping people not willing to spend the time to check a piece of paper. After grabbing a few things that looked confusingly scientific enough to dissuade any questions, we walked down the corridor to a door hidden around a corner. Vulcan produced a keycard and opened it.  
"We aren't supposed to be in here, so be quiet."

Vulcan walked over to one of the drawers and opened it. Inside were a large variety of knives, folding, fixed blade, even a weird one that looked like a curved machete. Vulcan noticed me eyeballing it.  
"It's a Kukri. There's no way you could hide that thing, as cool as they are."

"What about that one?" I gestured to a knife that was about sixteen inches long, just barely shorter than the Kukri, but far thinner.  
"I think that's a bayonet. Here, try it out." Vulcan handed me the knife, engraved 'M1905' on the handle. It's wooden grip fit into his hand perfectly, it's blade polished to a mirror shine that was obscured only by a thin layer of oil applied to the steel. The experience should have felt new, yet it did not, for some reason.  
"I like it. A lot."  
"Well, here you go then, I guess." Vulcan handed me the sheath by snapping it onto the knife still in my hands.  
"As for the lighter, those should be over here." He began walking over to the set of drawers he gestured at. "Don't know why you would choose a piece of ancient history like that, but as long as you like it."  
"History?"  
"That bayonet you've got there is around a hundred and thirty years old." Vulcan explained as he opened up the drawer.

I slowly rest my arm against my side, now conscious of what the blade was - a miracle to have survived as long as it did. I put it into my waistband.

"You're gonna need a lighter as well. I think I've got something in mind since you liked that knife." he held a small, brass piece, slightly larger than a matchbox, along with a small tube with a threaded cap, knurling cut deep into it, made of brass as polished as the lighter.  
"This is a Zippo. It's a little bit more finicky than your standard lighter. You need to fuel it frequently. That's what this container is for." he handed the set to me. "Take good care of it, and it will serve you well."  
"Dude, I can't take that, it's too nice. Someone would notice."  
"Too bad, because it's yours now. Just try not to use it to smoke. Then somebody would notice for sure." He placed the pair into my hand. "Treat them right."  
"I don't smoke."  
"You will eventually here."

I hope he wasn't serious.  
"Anything else we need?"  
"Nope." Vulcan lead me out of the storeroom and closed the door.

"What's so cool about this lighter?"  
"They never break, never go out in the wind, and are all around good lighters." Vulcan shook his head. Slipping the pair into my pocket, I still didn't get why the lighter was such a big deal. Like seriously, it's a fucking lighter.

We walked by the Quartermaster, still sleeping. "Hey, that guard left the secure storeroom unlocked again."  
The Quartermaster grumbled, evidently unhappy at the ineptness of the guard, but refused to raise his head off the desk. "Could you lock it for me? I'm sick of cleaning up after him every other week."  
"He didn't make a mess, he just left it unlocked. I took care of that already."  
"At least someone in this place is competent."

The rest of the ten-day holiday, Vulcan taught me all kinds of things. Land navigation, how to start a fire, how to sharpen my knife, how to trap animals, but one thing always struck him - it was if I had done these things before. He flat out told me that I picked up fire building way faster than I should have. I was nearly an expert after a few hours when many people would be struggling to understand how to get a fire started. It didn't seem right. How was I learning this so fast? A few days before the holiday was over, I already learned everything Vulcan was concerned about. In order to take our minds off the upcoming working period, we had resorted to talking about what we could remember. One day, things changed. A lot.

"Lazarus, I need to tell you something."  
"What?"  
"I can't remember things anymore. It's been like that for a long time."  
"Wait, what?"  
"It started around ten. I've been forgetting things about who I am, where I've been. You can remember your real name, right? Not Lazarus, but your real name."  
"Well, yeah, of course."

"I can't. I can't remember all sorts of things." Vulcan sighed and rested his face in his hands. "It was around ten, I think, that I forgot it," he sobbed and held up a fabric bound notebook that he kept under his arm. "I can't remember what I did last holiday or the one before it. I just have to go by this. I can't ever lose it. If I do, I'll forget the times I laughed, the things I've done, everything. It's all in here."  
"Are you alright?"

"Of course not. I'm only having to hold my life in my hands every time I walk around. This is the only proof of my existence. I don't know who I am or where I'm from." Vulcan paused to put the notebook back under his arm.

I was shocked. Despite all my hallucinations and drug-induced nightmares, could remember roughly where I was from. Like many of the kids my age here, I was raised by a foster home controlled by the organization, though I didn't realize it at the time. Home to about five kids, several of which being older and stronger, beat me all the time. My old name, I had it written on the back of my own notebook. It meant nothing to me. The only people who called me it were the people who meant me pain. Once I had become slightly adjusted to the hellish crucible that was this place, I never tried to remember it again. I put it far away in my mind, and was reborn as Lazarus. It was based off of my official designation, which was a bit of a mouthful. LA-03-R-02. Lazarus was easier to say. I don't remember what Minerva and Vulcan's were. They had introduced themselves by the name they preferred, and I did the same.

Vulcan, however, suffered from a different kind of pain. In the chaos of being raised in this awful place, he lost what he was, and who he could be. He battled daily with conflicting memories and confusing notes that frantically tried to remind him of who he was. He was dying.

"That's why I need to get out. I'm certain it's the drugs. They make me lose my memories. It could be some of the hypnosis that they've been training me on, but I doubt it. That's not even how hypnosis works, and I've only started working with it this year. Like I said, I've been having this happening for almost eight years. That's why you have to do this. Even if I get better, I would never be able to memorize everything required to get out. It's a miracle I could teach you survival skills. I had to give myself a refresher from a book, and I'll probably forget them by the end of the week."

"You really can't remember your real name at all?" Being in the Isolation chamber, I knew this was the one place I could get a straight answer.

Vulcan stared blankly at the wall adjacent from him.

"There was a week when I wasn't even aware I had a name. I don't even remember when it was. Who knows, it might have happened twice. Three times even. All I know is it's happened before, and it might happen again."

He straightened up and looked me in the eye. For the first time, I could see true desperation in his eyes. I was looking at the face of a man who felt his life had no value, the melancholy frown of a human who had not felt happiness in a long while, the eyes of someone preparing to die.

"Please Lazarus, you have to do this. If not for me, then for Minerva. She has to make it out of here alive. I may not be able to risk my life getting us out, but if push comes to shove, I am fully prepared to give my life, and my suffering, to ensure that she is not harmed."

Was I prepared to die like he was? Could I trust him? It was time for me to choose. He outstretched his left arm, in a gesture to cement our understanding and trust. He looked me in the eye.

"You in?"

"Of course."

I laughed and shook his hand, because he was a friend. We needed to trust someone in these dark times. If I died out here, it sure as hell was going to be for fellowship, and not to disappear without a word from anyone, alone and without a cry of anger.

"When do we put it into action?"

"Hopefully at the very end of the next holiday is when we make our break. Plan on it."


	3. Chapter 3: Descent into Madness

"Alright Minerva, they didn't tell me why I was transferred here, but the modafinil is already giving me a headache. What the hell is going on?"  
"None of the AI are integrating with the walker computers."  
"Not even MESA?"  
"Not even MESA. it's as if they don't want to get in them at all. Always throws an error, and when I check the memory bus for the error, there's nothing wrong."  
"What the hell?"  
"I figured you would be the only person who could help, Lazarus. You have to have seen this before, right?"  
"Never."  
"Well, that's not good."  
Minerva stared at the wall.

"We have to get some of our own units ready by the end of this working period. You know why. In case all hell breaks loose and we fail, Vulcan is working overtime to get twelve AI consciousnesses working."

What Minerva was talking about was the fact that this new set of Autonomous Soldier Walkers, military machines capable of mass destruction without a single human input, were going to be initially deployed at the complex for enforcing security protocols. As they phased out the larger, human-controlled 'Archaea' walkers. These newer AI-controlled machines were our silver bullet out. With the built-in backdoors, we would be able to get out while facing minimal problems. In order to escape, getting the A3 units, IRON, VEGAS, and MESA would be absolutely necessary.

At first, the week had minor successes. After taking a look at the memory errors, the problems seemed to be minor. There were legitimate errors in how Minerva had set up the trio to boot, but now a new problem had arisen - they refused to follow orders. Minor stuff they were okay with, but many things they flat out refused to do. There was no way anyone would let them be area security if they refused to obey orders. Free will doesn't exactly make for a good soldier.

I was working over a terminal, adjusting the responsiveness of MESA when I started hearing things. Usually, I just tried my best to work on while hallucinating, but this one felt different, it's whispering stronger than what I had felt before. Instead of being greeted by the usual hallucinations that generally involved me watching my body be devoured by inanimate objects around me, I saw something else as I felt my right arm slowly go limp, followed by my right leg. I saw a man that looked just like me, smiling as electricity ripped across his face. He was choking me, crushing my throat with a passion and fury not imaginable. The electricity rippled from him into me, turning red as it crackled through my chest. I could feel my heart stop as the pain ripped through my spine, stabbing my nerves with an unforeseen fury. I felt the distinct smell of charring flesh and watched in horror as my right arm burned away.

I screamed, an unimaginable agony taking over my mind. I saw myself dying over and over again as I fell out of my chair. As I hit the ground, I could hear a female voice screaming for help. I slowly watched the world around me go black.

* * *

I slowly came to, as the pain was no longer around me. I felt the distinct sensation of several belts holding me down to a hospital bed, opening my eyes I could smell the distinct odor of chlorine bleach and hand sanitizer. I was in the medical wing. Off to my left, I saw a guard, dressed in black, his face hidden by a black mask and the mirrored visor on his helmet.

"What happened?" I asked him weakly.  
"You're Lazarus, right?" I nodded my head in response. "You had a seizure. Worse than some of your more recent ones by a pretty wide margin. Let me get the doc." he pressed the radio button on his shoulder.  
"Doctor Nash, 'L' has come to. Please hurry down so you can talk to him before administration gets here."He moved his hand back to where it originally was - resting on his gun.  
"Administration has granted you ten day's leave, but granted that you're already awake, they may shorten that."  
the door opened to reveal Dr. Nash, the man most responsible for keeping me alive as of late. He looked up from his clipboard to greet me.

"Feeling better huh?"  
"Like I could go for a four-mile run."  
"I appreciate your enthusiasm, but you're definitely not doing too well."  
"Three-mile run?"

Dr. Nash was deadpan at the joke. "In all seriousness, that was probably your worst seizure yet, judging by your log. The amount of sedatives we had to use to calm your muscles is nuts." he flipped through a few pages. "It really is a miracle you're alive. Your EEG shows that this one was messing with your heart muscles."

"In English?"  
"The seizure caused a heart attack that your body couldn't respond to. You should be dead right now." Nash looked at another page on his clipboard. "Under normal circumstances, I would recommend you stay under medical supervision for a few months, but of course, these are not normal circumstances. As to your leave," Nash quickly checked outside the door to look down the hall, then audibly cursed under his breath, and opened the door wide. He gave one of the most insincere smiles I've ever seen to the man who walked in. His suit betrayed the fact that he came from Administration.

"You've been given eight days leave, Lazarus. You are expected to resume work as soon as you get back to your station."  
"Excuse me, asshole?" Nash retained his sarcastic smile as he stared down the sharply dressed man. "Ten is already far too short. He gets ten, no less. That's what you said."  
"The situation has changed. He has woken up far quicker than you claimed he would. We'll give him nine days. No more. His team is already far behind without him."  
The man walked out of the room, trailed by Dr. Nash screaming a set of obscenities at him that would make a sailor wince. It would be in vain. Like the rest of the medical staff, he would be threatened with termination for insubordination, and then stop complaining to Administration for a week. The last guy they wrote up for termination was literally kicked out the front door in nothing but his scrubs and a broken leg. The stories about how he came back crawling to the gate, starving and pleading for food, before getting shot, had stopped most from considering termination as something they were okay with. As their voices trailed away, the guard let slip an insult unheard to everyone but him and I alone.

"Ratfucker."

A set of shoes could be heard clicking their way down the hallway. It wasn't Nash, these were far lighter and faster than Nash walked. A figure turned her way into my doorway. The strawberry blonde hair and cat ears betrayed that it was Minerva.

"Hey Lazarus." she looked over to the guard. "Could you leave the two of us alone for a bit? I want to talk to him."  
"Of course. I'm only here on Doctor Nash's orders." he turned and walked out of the doorway, which she held open kindly for him. Most people in the facility were kind to the medical staff guards - they seemed to be more human than the other ones. Minerva closed the door.  
"I was worried about you, you know. That was really scary."  
"Minerva, I…"  
She had run over to my bed to hug me, stopping my train of thought dead on the tracks. Her concern stifled my protests, as she held me tight.  
"I saw you crackling with this red electricity when you fell over. It was really weird and scary. Do you know what it was?" she asked me softly.

My mind thought back to the nightmarish hallucination I saw as I had my seizure. The man that looked just like me, crackling with blue lightning that slowly spread to me and turned red. Was it real? Was my hallucination based in reality at all?  
"No clue. I don't ever remember seeing anything like that. It's all really hazy."  
"You sure? It looked like you were hallucinating too."  
"Look, I don't think you should worry about what I saw. It's a drug-induced hallucination, nothing more. Stop freaking out."  
She began to cry a little, tugging at my gown. "They didn't make you take any of the bad ones though." she whimpered. "It was just Modafinil and amphetamines. No Lisdexamfetamine. I checked. No bad drugs."  
I held her tighter and tried to comfort her. "It's gonna be alright. Shhhhhhhhh, don't cry, It's okay. It's okay. It's okay."


	4. Chapter 4: Panic

Right on schedule, nine days later, I was dismissed from the medical wing. If I could walk, I could work. I returned to the laboratory to begin my work again. Sure enough, the A3 units were showing resistance to their orders. They wanted to obey none of the critical orders we gave them. They instead seemed far more concerned with their own safety, disobeying orders out of fear. The Administration was not pleased. There was no point in selling a soldier if it refused to enter the battlefield. Vulcan, Minerva, and I had gathered in the isolation booth to figure out how to solve the solution, as we had just been given an order: get A3 working by the next set of simulations in twenty days, or scrap them. I spoke up first.

"Vulcan, is there any way we might be able to get them working?"  
"We could use the backdoors, but that would let them know about them. Additionally, the end result wouldn't be something they like - it wouldn't be able to think for itself. Sorta defeats the point of an autonomous weapons platform."  
"So we need to get back to square one then. Why are they not following orders?"  
"That is the million-dollar question. I would tell you if I knew for sure, and I made the damn consciousness of each and every one myself."  
"Can they remember things?"

Vulcan and I looked over at Minerva. Her question felt out of place to me, but knowing her, it had to have a purpose.

"Well, yeah, I suppose. It would probably be part of their training map. They learn, so they have to remember things." Vulcan was obviously as confused as I was.  
"Why don't we make them remember good things then?" Minerva glanced around the room. "Like that obeying what we say leads to good things?"  
"You mean fake their memories?" Vulcan was intrigued by the idea.  
"Yeah."  
"I guess. Have you tried that yet, Lazarus?"  
"Nope." the idea never crossed my mind. I didn't even know that their learning algorithm was that complex. "How would we fake it anyway?"  
"Leave that to me. I just need you guys to figure out what they like to do and record it."  
"Sure thing, Vulcan!" Minerva was excited at the prospect of her idea helping out, despite the fact that she wasn't really aware of how AI really worked yet. It was all one big black box to her, and all she knew how to do for now was put it into a box that she made and controlled.

A few days later, the memory units of A3 were requested and came back after about two hours. Vulcan had slaved over the false memories to be linked into the existing ones. It wasn't as clean as having them there from the start, but it was going to have to be good enough to satisfy administration. They showed promise - they were obeying our orders. No longer did they refuse to run into battle, instead they seemed eager to go where we lead them. The demonstration would be soon, and hopefully, the trio of IRON, VEGAS, and MESA would pass.

* * *

The testing had gone better. IRON was now instead suicidally running into gunfire when not ordered to. This, however, presented a major problem: in the administration's eyes, IRON failing to follow orders meant that there was a good chance that the other units would follow suit. They wanted to see IRON working, or none of the units would pass. We had ten days left and had exhausted all options. We met again in the Isolation booth to figure out what we could salvage from the situation.

"Maybe we could give them more good memories?"  
"Minerva, that's not the problem. The problem is that we now have to figure out why they are doing this instead of just mitigating it."  
"I mean, we could use the backdoors, Vulcan. Make them do what we need."  
"That's out of the question. It would reveal our escape attempt. We aren't going to be able to fix this in ten days. No way in hell."  
"So what do we do then?"  
More silence.  
"We could save them for when we get out. AI tech is worth a lot of money these days." My suggestion was simple, but lacked a critical point - how would we get out of here without A3. Vulcan noticed immediately.  
"And what do we do for the machines due for the deadline?"  
"Make new ones? Are you crazy?" Minerva agreed.  
"They were probably expecting these to fail. That's why they told us to get these working sooner, so that we could work on newer models for the next while. Can you get new AI consciousness made in time?"  
"I don't know. Maybe. We would need like twelve, right?"  
"Correct."  
"With a bit of luck I might be able to."  
"Then it's settled. Make backups of A3. We'll carry them on our person. Never put the drive away when we get it. Nobody can know."  
Minerva spoke up. "Who gets who? I want IRON."  
"You can have IRON, Minerva. Which one do you want, Vulcan?"  
"I'm not picky."  
"VEGAS it is then. I'll keep MESA. Start working on those units right now. We have no time to lose. I'll inform Administration that we're scrapping A3 early."  
"You sure? They won't be happy."  
"I'll handle it."

* * *

About thirty days later, after Vulcan was done constantly slaving over his work, the twelve AI were ready. We started with the first three, ALPHA, BRAVO, and JOHN. ALPHA was quickly outfitted with and old - but still functional - PSG-1 rifle, and was made to be a long distance sniper, given a hand that had a dedicated lever for shooting that didn't move the gun when you fired, purpose built for accuracy. BRAVO was put into an extensively modified chassis that utilized a flamethrower, however, he was designed to work well with most heavy weapons. JOHN was set up as a scout unit, having an additional sensor suite and an AR-10 that I had helped to hot-rod a bit into quite the precise shooter. Chrome lined barrel and everything. My years as working to arm the older Archaea walkers with four inch cannons gave me a deep love for guns, along for a sharp eye for good ones. I was getting six inch groups at three hundred yards. JOHN could probably get better groups than that, given he had similar programing to ALPHA. I was proud of that gun, and even prouder to give it to him. I had also requested that JOHN be given higher parameters for leadership and

We still had more work to do. SIM, AND, ZEB, PHIL, NATHAN, TOM, MATT, JDE, ZEAL, and JUDAS still needed to be done and we only had little more than forty days to finish them. The next few weeks were going to be a race to the finish. Each one would take around 3-5 days to complete the process. SIM, AND, ZEB, and PHIL were quickly turned into standard run of the mill soldiers, equipped with FN FNCs. NATHAN was set up as a heavy weapons platform geared for machine gun use, similar to BRAVO's, but with a focus on speed versus being able to carry massive weapons. TOM and MATT were set up as close quarters combat troops, being given in-house made PDWs made from extensively modified Steyr AUGs, designed to shoot 300 blackout from a suppressor, making them nearly dead silent. JDE and ZEAL had been set up as breacher units, being given more armor and shotguns built into their forearms. They had been given modified AUGs as well. JUDAS was something never really tried - an electronics countermeasures unit. He could jam every radio transmission in an area while keeping his squadmates channels free with frequency hopping. It was quite the achievement.

The last few weeks had been pure chaos. We had managed to somehow get all thirteen working just before the holiday started. The Administration hadn't confirmed if any of A4 were going to be placed on post, of course, but what little footage Vulcan could scrounge up showed that at least ALPHA, BRAVO, and JOHN were serving as guard units along the tunnel areas. Far more than enough to work with. I went to bed that night, knowing that I would wake up in the middle of a new kind of storm, one where I would have to begin the process of preparing for the escape. I had ten days until I died.

* * *

Today, the situation had changed. Minerva had come running down the hall with a fervent look in her eyes. She dragged me and Vulcan into her laboratory, and closed the isolation booth door frantically.

"Someone found out."  
"You have to be shitting me." Vulcan was aghast at this new information.  
"I'm not joking. Eris came and told me. She wants in."  
"What did you tell her?"  
"I said 'I don't know what you're talking about.' and walked off, then went to find you guys right after. You think she's telling the truth?"  
"Truth or not, how can we trust her?"  
Vulcan began fidgeting at my point.  
"I guarantee that working with her is bad news. We can't afford to bring another on."  
"That's not the point Lazarus. The point is that someone else somehow knows."  
Oh god. He was right. Perhaps even Administration knew.  
"So what do we do Vulcan?" Minerva was the most worried I had seen her since my time in the medical center. "Do we postpone it, stop it, go through with it…"  
"We can't drop the plan. If we were to give up entirely, our backdoors would eventually be found out and we would be screwed."  
"But what if they expect us coming? What if they trap us?"

Vulcan sat there while me and Minerva quarreled over the information. He looked away from both of us, thinking about what to do.  
"We can't waste all the energy we've put into our plans! A delay now would mean the process of putting everything in place would start all over again!"  
"We certainly can't risk walking into a trap!"

Vulcan looked up.  
"That's fair Minerva, but none of have any more time we can lose. We've put off this plan for far too long as it is. If I hadn't broken my leg, we would have left without Lazarus long ago."  
"What?"  
"He never told you? Vulcan, you Asshole! Why didn't you tell him!"

Vulcan stumbled as he tried to stand up using his cane. He did everything he could to look away from me. Slowly, he got to his feet.  
"I…"  
His eyes look to me and then darted away.  
"I don't trust you."

"Clearly not." I was furious. Why had he kept this from me?

"I never wanted to involve you with any of this. I thought you would tell someone about our plans, and clearly I was right. You had to have been the person that told Eris." He clutched the notebook that he kept close to him at all times, and inhaled deeply. "I didn't do it, and clearly Minerva had nothing to do with it. As far as I'm concerned, you're the suspect, and you need to explain why the hell you told Eris about this."

Was he joking? I couldn't tell at this point. It felt like he was serious, but there was no way that Vulcan actually was nuts enough to believe something like that, right? I didn't even know Eris. We had dorms next to each other, yes, but our labs were in opposite directions. We hardly ever saw each other, much less talked.

"Explain yourself, Lazarus."  
"You're out of your fucking mind. I've got a good idea to up and leave this plan entirely."  
"You won't."  
"Fucking watch me Vulcan. Because the second I leave, this all comes crumbling down."  
"I…"  
"What? You expected me to take that kind of an accusation lightly? Do you really know what you just said? It's bullshit and you know it, so you better not have meant it."

Vulcan was silent. He gripped his notebook even tighter.  
"I… I'm sorry. I was clearly mistaken. It doesn't change anything though."  
Well what I learned about him sure as hell changed something. I was furious.  
"We start two days before the holiday is over. No sooner, no later." I stated as I stood up.

I walked out to let Minerva and Vulcan fight about him keeping this secret. I hope she tore him to shreds about all of this.


End file.
